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December 21, 2015

Dilma’s fall: The wrecking of an inspiring left-wing experiment by Alfredo Saad Filho

December 20, 2015http://bit.ly/1NHseGc

By: Alfredo Saad Filho (Professor of Political
Economy at the Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London).

Brazil’s Supreme Court
has ruled that Congress must restart impeachment proceedings opened by the
Chamber of Deputies against President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party
(PT). The deepest political crisis since the restoration of democracy, in 1985,
is entwined with the most severe economic contraction in a generation, due to
the turmoil in most middle-income countries, and to an ‘investment strike’
targeting the President’s downfall.

The country’s descent
has been turbo-charged by a relentlessly negative media campaign, supplemented
by a succession of corruption scandals orchestrated by overtly partisan judges
and a runaway Federal Police. They are seeking to prosecute every instance of
bribery and illegal finance touching the PT, however indirectly. In the
meantime, scandals involving the opposition remain un-investigated.

The number of Brazilians who rated Rousseff’s administration “bad”
or “very bad” fell to 65 percent, from 71 percent in August, according to a
Datafolha poll conducted from Dec. 16 to 17

Corruption in Brazil is always
nauseatingly entertaining, but it cannot be eliminated one scandal at a time.
Corruption belongs to the machinery of the state; it links politics with
business life and it buttresses the country’s inequality generating social
structures. It is, then, unsurprising that, in the 1990s, when the PT chose to
win elections instead of being honourably defeated, it had to find ways to fund
its campaigns, behave ‘responsibly’ and distribute favours, just like the other
parties.

Lula’s
rise

This strategy worked.
Lula was elected President in 2002, starting a succession of administrations
that tended to follow the path of least resistance: there has been no serious
attempt to reform the Constitution, the state or the political system,
challenge the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism, reform the media or
transform the country’s economic structure. The PT also maintained the
neoliberal macroeconomic policy framework imposed by the preceding
administration. The PT’s unwieldy political alliances led to a form of
‘reformism lite’ that alienated the party’s base and provoked the opposition
into escalating attacks since 2005.

In the meantime,
however, the resources made available by the global commodity boom consolidated
Lula’s position. In 2006, the government introduced an economic policy inflection
including bolder industrial and fiscal policies, higher public sector
investment and stronger distributive programmes. The ensuing dynamics supported
Brazil’s rapid recovery after the global crisis. The country was anointed as
one of the BRICS, and Lula became a global statesman. Yet, the political divide
deepened. The opposition crystallised around a neoliberal alliance led by
finance and the international capital, populated by the upper middle class, and
cemented by a choleric media.

The opposition used
these difficulties to justify an all-out attack against Dilma, demanding the
restoration of neoliberal orthodoxy. Under siege, Dilma’s economic team leaned
back towards neoliberalism, but this policy shift only increased the confidence
of the opposition, that redoubled its effort to win the 2014 elections.

In the meantime, the
judiciary tightened the screws around the PT. Successive corruption scandals
emerged and, in June 2013, vast demonstrations erupted in the country. They
encompassed a mélange of themes centred on ‘competent government’ and
‘corruption’, exposing tensions due to the economic slowdown, the government’s
isolation and its failure to improve public services.

Dilma was narrowly
re-elected through a mass mobilisation triggered by left perceptions that the
opposition would reverse the social and economic achievements of the PT.
However, Dilma immediately faced escalating political and economic crises. Her
desperate response was to invite the banker Joaquim Levy to the Ministry of
Finance, and charge him with implementing an orthodox adjustment programme that
alienated the PT’s social base. Then another scandal captured the headlines.

The Federal Police’s Lava
Jato operation unveiled a large corruption network centred on the
state oil company Petrobras and including colossal robbery and illegal
political funding. Blanket media coverage focusing on the PT destroyed the
government’s credibility and catalysed the emergence of a right-wing opposition
demanding Dilma’s impeachment.

Examination of their grievances
fills a laundry basket of dissatisfactions articulated by expletives, but there
is no plausible legal argument supporting the President’s impeachment. The
process is entirely political and degrading for democracy, but it is likely to
succeed in one way or another.

What
now?

This dégringolade suggests
five lessons.

First, under favourable
circumstances, PT policies disarmed the right and disconnected the left from
the working class. However, once the economic tide turned, the confluence of
dissatisfactions overwhelmed the PT, and there was no one left to support its
administration.

Second, while the PT
governments reduced the income gap between the upper middle class and the poor
they also increased the ideological distance between them, as the former
drifted to the extreme right while the latter became inert.

Third, despite its
volcanic energy, the new right is devoid of support outside the élite. There is
not, then, a crisis of the state, but a crisis of government that cannot be
addressed in the absence of economic growth. However, growth is unlikely to
return while the PT remains in power.

Fourth, the extinction
of Kirchnerismo in Argentina, the disintegration of Chavismo in
Venezuela, and the trials of the PT suggest that transformative projects in
Latin America are bound to face escalating right-wing resistance. It follows
that the pursuit of ever-broader alliances is not necessarily stabilising, because
they are prone to internal collapse. Instead, the sources of social, political
and institutional power must be targeted through ambitious shifts in the
economic base, international integration, employment patterns, public service
provision, structures of representation and the media.

Fifth, Brazil is
entering a long period of instability; the emergence of a new political
hegemony may take years, and it is unlikely to favour the left. In the
meantime, we can expect constant entertainment reading about surreal scandals.
Unfortunately, the stakes are too high for comedy, and the ongoing impeachment
process is not about corruption. It is about a right-wing coalition wrecking an
inspiring left-wing experiment in one of the most important countries in the Global
South.

This
article, abridged by the writer for The BRICS Post, draws upon a
longer piece posted on the website of SOAS, University of London.